A new Kawasaki Ninja 400 has been outed after the firm shot an advert for the bike in Milwaukee, USA.
Local TV news crews descended on the shoot, which closed several roads in the city. While Kawasaki did its best to hide the undisguised bikes during the filming of the ad, the whole caboodle was caught on camera.
We don’t get the best view of the new bike, but there are some details that can be picked out. First off, it’s clear this isn’t the existing Ninja 400, which is sold in Japan to meet local legal requirements. That bike is simply a sleeved-down Ninja 650, identical to the larger machine in every other way.
Instead this bike – which is surely destined to be sold worldwide, given that its ad shoot is in America – appears to be a replacement for the Ninja 300. The number plate reads Ninja 400 (or possibly even Ninja 420, it’s not completely clear), giving away the name and capacity. The swingarm, fork and brakes look similar to the existing Ninja 300’s, but the bodywork is entirely new.
The engine appears to be a new unit rather than a bored-out version of the existing Ninja 300 motor. Given the Ninja 300’s parallel twin has its roots in the GPZ250’s engine, introduced way back in 1983, a replacement is well overdue. The clutch cover appears to be positioned higher, as is normal on more modern engine and transmission designs.
While increasing the capacity from 300cc to 400cc might seem a leap, it makes sense given that Kawasaki’s rivals are also getting larger. Yamaha’s R3 uses a 321cc twin, KTM’s Duke 390 has a 373cc single and Honda’s new Asian-market CBR250RR twin is expected to be developed into a 350cc by the time it goes on sale worldwide. Strangely, this comes just after the introduction of the World Supersport 300 championship as a WSBK support class, but organisers are already allowing bikes with more than 300cc to enter, even letting the Honda CBR500R to take part, albeit with a weight penalty.
By Ben Purvis
